[SCA] Purim cooking

[cellio]

Tonight I did a trial run of one of the recipes for the Purim event, a fish pie. The ones for the event will not all be as whimsical as this, but one probably will be.



(The tail "fins" slipped in cooking.) I'm not sure what to use for the eye. I'm thinking maybe a green grape (or half of one), but I didn't have any in the house.

I seem to have zero talent for pie crust. The first problem is that it was kind of tough (I mean even before baking); I understand that this means I kneaded it too long, but the line between "not yet one coherent ball of dough" and "over-kneaded" is, in that case, way too fine. As soon as it all held together I stopped.

I assume my problems rolling it out are related to this. I couldn't get it as thin as I wanted. It just wouldn't go, after a while. I suppose I should go looking for "pie crust 101" on Wikipedia or something.

Comments

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

That looks pretty good to me. And I think a grape would be a great "eye."

Looks like fun to do, too!

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

What are you using for a recipe? My mom's recipe is just oil, flour, and water, and maybe a little salt, and it's really good -- very flaky. It's too late to call her for it now, but I'd be happy to get it from her tomorrow.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Ooh, also, can you use a green olive for the eye? Green olives with pimentos might not be strictly peiod (and I've no idea if they're kosher), but it'd look cool!

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

For a flaky crust, chop stuff together til it looks "sandy" and clumps a little.
Then press with the heel of the hand, and it will lock into a ball. Done.

Remember to keep it all as cold as you can ( ice water, cold board, refridgerate to keep cool, etc ).
The pie looks lovely, I do wish I could be there. The almond is cute.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

When I made the "Pastry of Fish" soteltie last year, I used a cros-section slice of black olive for the eye. I'll try to post a link to a picture....

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Cute fish!

I have never heard of a yeast-based pie crust. All the pastry crusts I know of rely on keeping everything chilled so the fat doesn't soak into the flour, but yeast needs warmth and time to rise. What exactly is this supposed to be like?

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

Pie crusts ARE tricky. I'm fairly competent at them, but it took me a while (and a lot of terrible crusts) to get that way. My tips, FWIW:
Use cold water.
Use cold butter. I like to soften it a little, cut it into cubes, and stick it back in the fridge.
I mix it in the electric mixer until it's not quite consolidated into a ball. Finish by hand. Try to touch it as little as possible.
It not getting thin enough sounds to me like there's too much gluten in the dough (this could also be contributing to toughness). If you're using bread flour, certainly switch to all-purpose; also, consider pastry flour.
For regular pies (i.e. not the free-form one pictured above), I almost always blind-bake the crust. I've never had an underdone crust since I started doing this.

Scales

[misoranomegami.livejournal.com]

Sorry random person passing through...

If you wanted to try something differet for the scales you could make the dough a little thicker and then do a series of snips with some kitchen sheers. That way you have little raised triangular bits standing up that you don't have to cut and attach by hand and if you wanted more definition you could squish them with your thumb to shape them individually.